GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The best thing to say about Tennessee’s 29-16 loss at Florida Saturday night is that the brouhaha which occurred in the game’s final seconds wasn’t started by a dirty Omari Thomas play. Thomas pulled up and only bumped Mertz who took a knee after casually killing time in the backfield. What was originally ruled targeting was not targeting and won’t cost Thomas a half next week against UTSA.
Everything else? Pitiful at best and an unmitigated disaster at worst.
“You guys saw it,” Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said postgame. “It wasn’t very good football.”
It wasn’t very good football and Tennessee isn’t a very good football team right now.
Florida, who abandoned the run two weeks ago at Utah, won the game on the ground. The Gators rushed for 183 yards including a career-high 172 yards from Trevor Etienne.
That signifies the most discouraging part of Tennessee’s loss for the 2023 Vols. They were outmanned along both lines of scrimmage by a team that’s not particularly impressive on the line of scrimmage.
Tennessee’s pass rush, which showed real signs of improvement the first two games of the season, was a non factor. The Vols’ edge rushers broke contain frequently and Florida quarterback Graham Mertz made them pay just as often including on a number of Florida’s six first half third down conversion.
“We got to be better, got to get off the field,” Heupel said.
One bad game is one bad game for this Tennessee team. These Vols can still make real improvement and while many of their goals are now bordering on unattainable, they can still salvage a respectable season.
More From RTI: Everything Josh Heupel Said About Tennessee’s Loss At Florida
But Tennessee’s loss at Florida raises plenty of questions about Josh Heupel. The Vols looked unprepared and undisciplined Saturday night. For the first time in Heupel’s tenure, an opponent punched Tennessee in the mouth and the Vols had no semblance of an answer.
And for the third time in four road games, Tennessee completely laid an egg. Like it did last season at Georgia and to a lesser extent at South Carolina, the moment appeared far too big for Tennessee. Pre snap penalties were debilitating including a stretch of three straight first-and-10 false starts amidst Tennessee’s second quarter collapse.
At best, Tennessee’s program has a problem playing on the road and handling crowd noise. At worst, Heupel’s offensive philosophy is vulnerable in electric environments.
“Have to give yourself a chance early in the football game,” Heupel said of the road struggles. “Got to play efficiently. Got to line up and tackle on the other side. Got to play. Three phases man. Early in the football game, (we) did not play well enough after the first drive on both sides of the football.”
Tennessee’s resurgent 2022 season built Heupel more than enough goodwill that none of these concerns will come to a head this season. Nor should they. But the elite college football coaches, which Heupel looked like a season ago, don’t lose to this underwhelming Florida team.
Which brings us to the great opportunity Tennessee missed. Florida’s program was on very shaky footing early in Billy Napier’s second season. The Vols’ conference opener was a chance for them to cement themselves as one of the top challengers to Georgia in the SEC. To prove Tennessee’s program had surpassed Florida’s and that Ben Hill Griffin Stadium was no house of horrors but simply a building bad Tennessee teams have played poorly in.
Instead, Napier gets a program defining win which should stabilize things in Gainesville, and Tennessee’s losing streak in The Swamp reaches double digits.
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Different year. Same Tennessee